When it comes to placing doctoral students in clinical psychology internships, no university in Indiana does it better than Indiana State.

Of 54 students in ISU's doctoral program in clinical psychology (Psy.D.) who participated in the national internship match program between 2000 and 2006, 94.3 percent were placed, according to the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers (APPIC), which conducts the match program.

Indiana State's clinical psychology student placement rate was 4 percentage points higher than that of Purdue University, which had 31 students participate in the program during the six-year period, and 11 points higher than Indiana University, which had 18 participating students.

Psychology faculty use external indicators of quality, such as internship placement rate, to monitor the program's success, said Michael Murphy, ISU professor of psychology and director of clinical training.

"The data on internship placement add to other national indicators of our program's position at the top of Psy.D. training programs," Murphy said.

Other indicators of quality include data on clinical students' performance on the national licensing exam, which was in the top two Psy.D. programs nationally, Murphy noted.

ISU's doctor of psychology program has been accredited by the American Psychological Association for more than 25 years. The program follows a practitioner-scientist model of training and places more emphasis on research than some Psy. D. programs. The program philosophy is to prepare all students as broad-based general clinicians, while encouraging specialization through electives, research areas, internship selection, and post-doctoral training.

APPIC stresses that student success in finding internships is only one potential measure of how a doctoral psychology program meets its educational goals and that differences between each program's models of training, educational objectives and methods of securing internships can affect the rates of placement.

Story Highlights

Indiana State University's doctoral program in clinical pscyhology (Psy. D.) has the highest rate of any Indiana university in the placement of internships, according to statistics maintained by the Association of Psychology Postdoctoral and Internship Centers.